Living in a Post-Wilderness World

I love stories and I doubt that will ever change. That’s one of the things that I love about the Hebrew Bible (i.e. the Old Testament). The narratives found within the text can be profoundly helpful for any variety of circumstances and situations we may be facing. As I’ve been thinking about the world that we’re moving into…a post-pandemic world in which many, many people experienced significant confusion, disappointment, trauma, and deaths…I’ve wondered what narrative, what story, might be most helpful in that place.

I suppose the main reason I’ve been thinking and praying about this is because I’m trying to help my church process the last year and move forward into the future healthier than we’ve been before. And as I was praying, I got this unexpected answer: the story of the Judges.

Wait…that Judges? Like the one with Samson killing philistines with the jawbone of a donkey? And the one with that lady driving a tent peg through some dude’s skull? And the one about Deborah, the warrior princess who saved Israel? And the one with a slave girl being brutally raped and murdered and then severed into twelve pieces? And the one with a bloody civil war against the tribe of Benjamin? And the one with the massive understatements like this: “After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.” (Judges 3:31, NIV)

Uh, yeah, "He too saved Israel." That's one way of putting it. Care to elaborate on the 600 hundred Philistines he slew with a farm tool?

Can I be honest? This reads A LOT more like Game of Thrones than it does “the Bible.”

But I think that’s exactly why Jesus gave it to me for the time we’re in.

First, I think we all need to remember that the Hebrew Bible is a very complex series of writings with very complex characters. Second, we need to remember that these are real stories of real people in real places and real time. Third, the narratives of the Judges are commentaries on what happened to Israel in a few generations after arriving in the Promised Land.

After their miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt, they wandered (seemingly aimlessly) in the desert for 40 years. To the average Israelite on the ground, imagine how that might have felt – not knowing when or where or how the finish line would come but stubbornly hoping it might one day. The period of the Judges describes what happens on the Other Side of the Wilderness. We might call it a post-wilderness world. And I think that’s a fitting description for the existential season that our society is moving into at this very moment.

So, I’ll be journeying through some of these texts on YouTube. You’re welcome to join me there over the next couple months. But, in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this observation. In Judges 2, as the context and stage setting for the entire story, we read these words: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors [the generation of Joshua and the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness], another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10, NIV)

And because they neither knew God nor what he’d done for them, they (unsurprisingly) didn’t care for him or really pay much attention to him at all. The story of the Judges is what happens when Israel (God’s very own chosen people, remember?) live as though He doesn’t exist and he has no governance over their lives. As the text later says, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” (Judges 17:6, NIV) The results are bloody, brutal, and painful to witness. But God sent the Judges (or the Rulers) to save the people because he heard their cries in their oppression and suffering (Judges 2:18).

There’s much, much more to say. But that final thought is reminiscent of one of my favorite lines from the great novel and movie, The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantes, the heroic lead, meets an old priest in prison. Dantes tells the priest, “I don’t believe in God.” The priest replies, “It doesn’t matter. He believes in you.”

No matter the level of utter disregard for God and His Kingdom, he never stops caring, never stops loving, and never stops believing in his broken creation. In a post-wilderness world, I think that’s just the kind of Good News we need to hear.